Where are the wolves?

[Dr. Eszterhazy]

I have played several games using Wildmana mod and the Erebus Continent map and I have yet to see a wolf appear in the wild. There are plenty of tigers all over and you can find gorillas in the jungle. The occasional lion and bear will pop up right next to my cultural borders. I also see hundreds of giant spiders and dozens of lizards, panthers and griffons over the course of the game, but there are no wolves. In order to complete the Grand Menagerie wonder I had to wait for the event where you can buy a wolf from a hunter. In another game an event caused an immobile wolf pack to appear right outside of my city. I attacked it from the city so the captured wolf pack was created inside of the city, but I was unable to use it make a wolf pen even though the unit gave me that option (pushing the create wolf pen button did nothing). Eventually I was to get a wolf when a barbarian goblin died attacking the wolf pack in the city. On another occasion I released a barbarian hill giant and several wolves when I explored some ruins.

I tried playing with the extra animals option and still never saw a wolf. I would think that wolf packs would be more plentiful than the other animals and tigers, lions and gorillas would be harder to find.

 

[Lord Katana]

What mapscript/patch are you playing? In my games (all on 8.34, most on erebus or erebuscontinent) i get plenty of wolves early game. They die quickest (goblins hunt them to get mounted). I haven't seen a griffion in ages, not once! The different patches make different units more common... pre 8.0 griffions where the main threat. Now it's more goblins and str 6 stags who are the real threat.

I do play with tamed wilderness, i don't know if that not only lowers the spawn change but also the type.

 

[Dr. Eszterhazy]

I just recently started playing Wildmana and I believe that I downloaded the current version and the current patch. However the stags in my games are only 4 strength and griffins and giant spiders are everywhere.

I have been playing on the increasing difficulty setting, starting out on chieftain. By monarch, giant spiders are appearing everywhere on my borders. I had one small square surrounded by culture that was between my cities that had four giant spiders sitting in it after a few turns. When the borders popped, the spiders went on a rampage and ate several workers before I got them all.

 

[tesb]

the reason spiders are so common later on, is that they don't die nearly as often as other animals since they are invisible and thus can't be attacked, so they only die if they fail in an attack.

 

[Folket]

The problem with wolves is that they are so weak that they constantly get killed of by barbarians.

 

[Dr. Eszterhazy]

How do I check which version I have of Wildmana and the Erebus continent map?

 

[Lord Katana]

There is no ingame way to check as far as i know. You can check by checking which files you downloaded and installed. You should have the following...


the 8.0 file you should have is located here.

The 8.34 (cumulative patch) is found here.

You should also have downloaded "the prevent OoS file" which is at the bottom of the post i got the 2 previous links from. (post)

If you have the above files, you should be running the latest version (8.34). One important thing is when you install (or have installed) the big wildmana8.0 file you should delete the FFH2 folder, since it's overwritten by files from this patch.

There is no difference in patchfile names... they are all called patch.exe.
Hope it helps

 

[Dr. Eszterhazy]

Thank you all for your help. I was not sure whether I had this recent patch so I downloaded it again and the very next game I saw ... wolves ... all over the place. However in the game after that one it was back to no wolves. Is there a tech that does away with the appearance of wolves or replaces the chance of a wolf appearing with other animals/creatures like griffons and giant spiders? I have been either getting the Hunting tech from a goody hut in the early game or I try research it before the animals and goblins start to appear and I am wondering if this triggers the appearance of the more ferocious creatures instead of wolves.

 

[Lord Katana]

Most animals spawn roughly the same time. They increase strength over time. Since the wolves are easiest to kill they normally don't survive to get that bonus. Gorilla's and stags however frequently do...

I noticed that on the erebus mapscript animals are more abundant and re-spawn more. (i once had a area of ice to the north of me and polarbears kept popping up.. Nice str 7 units

 

[Caradoc]

Could it be the terrain? I never see them away from Tundra.

One time I was just a Wolf away from my Grand Menagerie and happened to spring a Lair guardian that came with some. So there's always hope.

 

[Folket]

There is also an event that gives the option to buy a wolf.

 

[Dr. Eszterhazy]

I came across a hyena for the first time yesterday, and it appeared to be able to be used to construct a wolf pen. I wasn't able to test that, because it was diseased and gave my hunter the diseased trait as well and I was not able to get either of them back to a city. Neither of them appeared to heal at all and they were eventually destroyed by other animals.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

diseased units heal slower so they can be unable to heal in some circumstances, like for example in enemy/neutral territory.

 

[Dr. Eszterhazy]

I found another hyena and I was able to use it to make a wolf pen. However I didn't see any wolves in that game. I went back to several old save files and opened the world builder and I never saw a wolf on the map or any goblin wolf-riders which might have indicated the prior existence of wolves.